by Marata Eros
Storm narrows his eyes at Lariat. “Favoritism.”
Everyone groans.
“Why'd we patch him in?” Snare's lips twist as he smirks, the motion making the small knot of scar tissue across his upper lip flatten.
“Masochists, all,” Lariat says.
Storm grins. “See, you fuckers like a little check and balance.” He gives a decisive nod. “Along comes, Storm and—boom—ya got all the balance you can stand.”
“Funny… I don't feel very balanced,” Wring gives him a speculative look.
“ʼCause, dude, you're kinda psycho.” Eyebrows hiked, he spreads his arms and juts out his chin.
Lariat and Noose join Wring in staring at Storm.
“I know you guys are badass SEALs. Fuck—duh. But I gotta be able to say what's here.” He touches his chest lightly. “And not be afraid to get whacked like a junkyard dog.”
I keep forgetting Storm is the youngest of all the brothers. At twenty-three, he’s virtually a baby. “No whacking Storm,” I say in a light voice.
My ex-SEALs smirk.
“No whacking Storm,” Noose repeats, clearly holding back laughter.
Lariat and Wring repeat the decree.
Finally, Snare says it last. Though he's not a former military man, he's tight with those who are.
Storm's face washes to smug. Ignoring the sarcasm, he switches topics and goes right for the jugular. “I want to be with you when you do her, Viper.”
Not who I was thinking of taking with me… but his comment about me favoring Trainer hangs between us, and I want to make the situation fair. “How about you and…” I give Noose a look, and that's enough for him to know I'm looping him.
His smoky eyes glitter back like sun on dirty glass. “Ya sure you wanna do the killing, Vipe?” Noose asks in a quiet voice. “It won't cost me what it'll cost you. The tab might be higher for others.”
Noose is a family man. Rose just had twins not too long ago, a couple of years after Arianna. However, he casually tosses around killing a woman because she means harm to our community. Serious fucking harm.
Essentially, harm to those he holds dear.
Maybe Noose is harder because he's got kids. Could be that being a dad, thinking about how it could be his kids in jeopardy, provides him all the motivation in the world.
I don't need to have kids to want to protect the innocent. I don’t like what this woman is doing, just on principle.
Looking in those pale-gray eyes, I know he'll do it, shelving the cost for later reflection.
Or possibly, no reflection at all.
“I'll do it.” I turn my head in Storm's direction. “You come, but I'm in charge of this little operation. We do it fast, nab her for questioning—that's the only agenda short term. Mine.”
“Damn,” Storm says with soft disappointment.
I feel my left eyebrow lift. “What do you have against women?”
Storm's eyes darken, like the clouds that gave him his name. “What don't I have?”
Noose and I exchange a glance. Storm doesn't know it, but he almost didn't get patched in. Lots of sweet butts won't be with his brand. His idea of sex is rough. Hard.
The type some women can't live through.
I never get in the way of three things: if it ain't with an animal, it's with someone of age, and it’s consensual, then it's okay by me. Even though it’s just barely, he stays within my moral parameters, so I can’t penalize him.
“Maybe not the best job for you with the hate you got for bitches,” Rider, another brother, says.
Storm nods. “But I can enjoy the show.”
Jesus.
Noose's eyes widen slightly at that.
And Storm called Wring a psycho? Maybe it's all about perspective.
Noose begins talking in a flat voice. “Bitch's name is Candice Arlington. Born 1981, five feet two, buck ten. Educated. Speaks four languages. No husband or kids. There's some blank spots here that I couldn't break through to grab additional intel. Don't like the holes in her timeline. At. All.”
“She's no spring chicken,” Snare comments thoughtfully. “Candi-baby doesn't look thirty-anything.” He frowns, clearly remembering the photos we saw earlier.
True. I whistle. “What the hell is this woman doing running kids?” Something doesn't add up. The situation seems too pristine—too good, for lack of a better term.
Noose slowly shakes his head. “Clean as a damn whistle. Can't find shit on Arlington.”
“But pictures don't lie,” Snare adds, voice dripping with disdain, jerking his jaw toward the folder Noose has in his loose grasp.
It's not brain surgery to add up all the thoughts at the table. We all saw the concrete proof of her handing off a kid. A picture is worth a thousand words.
Noose holds up the folder with the photos inside, tapping the corner against the table. “We know she's bad. Up to her ears in it. Everybody remember Allen Fitzgerald?” Noose pauses for affect.
Every brother pulls a face of clear disgust with the memory of that evil rich bastard.
“That fucker who was Krista Glass's half-brother—had an order in for a ten-year-old girl.” His eyes are heated smoke as he stares through us. “And Ms. Arlington was gonna deliver. We found a huge deposit in her account, matching the same figure as a withdrawal from his.”
“That is sick as fuck. Allen was gonna force Krista to marry him and have child pussy on the side? Dis-gust-ing.” Storm sneers.
“I'm really holding back about now,” Wring comments in false serenity, eyes intent on grooming his nails by blade.
“Maybe less honesty,” Lariat says to Storm in a drawling deep bass voice.
“Right, sorry,” Storms says then opens his mouth again, no sense of self-preservation in sight. “For the record, nobody should ever touch a kid. They die just for thinking about it hard enough.” His eyes darken to stoked embers inside his resolute face.
“I think you just like the dying part for Candice Arlington.” Snare's lips twist, puckering the scar running over his cupid's bow.
“You're right,” Storm replies instantly. “When it comes to kids getting abused, I'm all about the killing.”
I sense history there, but I'm not digging too deep on that one. Those hidden gems of misery have a way of rising without excavation, becoming unearthed in their own time and due diligence.
Wring begins to whistle tunelessly as he cleans his nails a second time with the switchblade. I’ve noticed that’s his habit when there's tension.
Like now.
“Okay, we're set,” I say, simultaneously closing the discussion and church. “I'll think about a date and have church once it's done.”
The men are quiet. Only loaded silence.
We made a decision, but I'll be damned if it sits well with me—or the brothers.
Chapter 2
Candice
“You know I can't meet with you. It's gotta be one of Mover's men. A Chaos Rider,” he adds unnecessarily.
“I hate them all,” I say softly and mean it.
I wish I'd never been tapped to do this job.
But it's what I do. As a linguist, and with my background, I had what the Bureau needed.
And I'm an undercover fed with unique skills.
As I recite that in my mind, it all sounds so impressive. But the reality is different. I have what they need because of what I don't have. A life. A husband. Kids. I'm just a shell of a human being. A vehicle for their justice. A weapon to be used against crime.
Hell, I don't even stay in the same state, nomadic by occupation. How long can one person be untainted by taking down sex trafficking rings?
The answer: Not long.
I've been doing take downs for five years, and I said this would be my last one. I promised myself.
As I break away from my conversation with Puck, I look down at the solemn eyes of the seven-year-old boy clutching my hand as we hurry toward the meeting point.
I gently squeeze his hand.
“Am I gonna be okay, Miss Candi?”
Closing my eyes briefly, I struggle with a quick prayer that never feels answered. When I open them, Calem's anticipation for my reply has wilted a little.
He's familiar with me. After all, I've been posing as the art docent at Calem's elementary school for the last year.
I slow, smoothing light-brown hair back from his brow. The chunk of hair immediately tries to return to its former position directly in front of his eyes. Doe eyes in a deep chocolate color stare back at me as if I'm all-knowing. As if.
“Yes,” I answer.
“What?” Puck says, irritated by our lapse in conversation.
I'm careful not to use Puck's name. He's all the family I have. “I need to go.”
After a heartbeat's pause, he delays our inevitable goodbye with, “Funny how we both got into law enforcement.”
Not funny at all. Desperate. Reactive. In no way, shape, or form was it funny.
“Yeah,” I answer softly anyway. Puck can revisit our childhood nightmares, but I won't by choice.
Especially not in the middle of a handoff, either, where everyone I come into contact with believes me to be a mule or a high-level former cherry too old to be wanted. Too used.
Though they still do. Men do still want me. Because of my small build, people often mistake me for younger. I'm almost thirty-seven years old, with a pert face that some might think is pretty. But I think of myself as cute, and that's a generous self-assessment.
What's important to me runs to the purely practical. Can I take care of this child long enough to get him to Puck and the temporary witness protection program?
I'm trained to be able to, but every time I execute a successful drop-off and hand over a child, I can't sleep or eat until I get the confirmation from Puck. I need to know that the perv took the bait and came to collect, then instead of getting his sick rocks off, he got locked up for his efforts.
One down. A million to go. I sigh. But just one man stands behind this nest of snakes. And Puck and I want him. Badly.
“Candi?” Puck says intensely into the cell.
“I'm here.”
After a beat of silence, Puck says, “Don't freak me out like that.”
“No worries. Just thinking.”
I can almost feel his relief over the cell. “Don't think to hard, baby sister.”
“No.” My voice betrays where my thoughts just were, though, and my brother knows them. Intimately.
After all, we share a lot of the same memories.
“There's just a few more kids. We're circling this drain, Candi—I promise. We'll find who's responsible.”
“I know.” Sudden tears threaten to fall, and my vision blurs. I stop walking through the park for a moment, desperately collecting the shreds of my psyche that threaten to blow away in the light breath of an early autumn. I tilt my head back, staring into a sky that is such a deep blue, it shouldn't be daytime. In Indian summer, though, it is. Calem's small warm palm is tucked inside my larger one.
Solid and real. Terrible. I can't let him go.
I must.
I don't know why this particular child is so difficult.
“It'll be okay, sis.”
I lower my chin and nod, though I know he can't see me. “Yep.” My inhale is shaky. The glue that makes me me is brittle, coming apart at the edges.
Maybe I'll just dry up and blow away?
“Call me from the new burner.”
“Yes,” I manage to answer.
I end the call and hunt down a trash can.
“Hang on a second, Calem.” Dropping his hand for a moment, I take apart my cell phone, extract the SIM card, and throw the cell in the trash.
Still holding the dime-sized SIM, I gently tug on Calem as I seek out another can.
A dented blue trash receptacle with a domed top presents itself as I round the bend of the snaking asphalt that winds through the park. I chose Gasworks Park, dead center inside a former industrial area of Seattle, on purpose. I am not as noticeable here. I could look like any other mom of this age category taking her son for a walk.
Grimly swallowing some emotion I won't name, I drop the SIM in the trash, and from there, I move swiftly toward the rendezvous point.
“Miss Candi?”
“Hmm?” I give a vague reply as my eyes drink in the park, assessing threats and the target simultaneously.
There.
A tall, threatening figure sits on a park bench, long legs thrust out in front of him. Brilliant late-day sunlight whitewashes his hair, bleeding through the tightly bound strands and turning them the color of wheat dust. An MC cut decorates his broad chest.
My heart rate speeds.
The bigger they are, the harder they fall, I automatically recite.
“I don't want to go.”
I hear this a lot. I answer as I'm trained to. But not without compassion.
I slow and sink to my haunches, automatically smoothing my shortish skirt underneath my legs.
I wear low heels with specialized cushion and firmness—sort of James Bond shoes, but for a girl. If I tap the heel a certain way, a two-inch spike will shoot out the back of the stacked platform from the widest part to be used in a reverse attack.
Roundhouse kicks have so much more force with a blade attached to a shoe.
I know this from experience.
Deliberately calming my breathing, I stare into Calem's large brown eyes. “I promise you that this scary guy will take you to my brother, who kinda looks scary too. Then the bad man will come, thinking he can take you.”
His dark eyes widen, too much of the whites showing.
I hate the handoffs. First the MC criminal liaison then the one who is even worse.
I tap his slightly upturned nose. “But then my brother will meet you later.” I still don't use Puck's name. I don't say my brother will collar that fucker and save Calem.
Solemnly, Calem nods, his heart in his eyes. His trust.
Emotion seizes my eyeballs, holding them prisoner, burning them with tears I can't shed. Won't. “How many times have I told you this?” I ask, holding my eyes wide open so the tears don't fall.
Calem holds up three fingers.
I feel my right eyebrow pop, and I shake off the edges of despair.
He shifts his weight. “Maybe like four.”
I'm quiet for a few seconds.
Finally Calem admits, “Yeah, you've told me lots’a times.”
I smooth his hair that's fallen forward a second time.
“And you stay quiet until you see my brother. I need you to be brave for me, Calem.” I wait then add, “How will you know it's him?”
He smiles the truly open smile only children seem to have, and I get a sudden pang for not having any of my own then ruthlessly shove the emotion aside.
It's not for lack of want. It's because I'm saving everyone else's kids instead of having a family of my own.
“He's gonna have a hockey stick on his arm.”
I give a smile. “With a…?”
“Puck!” He jumps up and down, quickly forgetting his anxiety in the excitement of secrets shared.
I put my finger against my lips in the universal “be quiet” gesture, and his smile fades. “That's right, Calem.”
He whispers, “And he kinda looks like you, Miss Candi.”
I nod. Hard to miss Puck’s and my unusual auburn hair color. Sometimes people think my hair is dark brown, but it's a very dark red, almost like mahogany. Even I concede the contrast of my hair against my light-golden eyes with the vaguest hint of green is unusual.
Looking nondescript is an advantage for undercover work; having memorable coloring is not.
Standing, I take his hand again, and we walk toward the figure flopped on the bench.
I resist the sudden urge to wipe my damp hands on my skirt.
Jesus, how I hate the bikers.
*
Up close, the guy looks like military somehow, and I ca
n't shake that first impression.
I'm meant to be observant. I didn't climb the Bureau ladder of success, bypassing males inside the male-dominated FBI, without being aware and discerning.
He withdraws the sunglasses, and eyes like hardened flint meet mine. I've never seen such an unusual iris color. It’s like captured smoke within the whites of his eyes.
Right now, they storm as they rake my figure.
This scrutiny—I'm accustomed to. Bikers are all the same. Their eyes always start at my feet and work up.
This one’s a little different, though. He begins at my eyes, and that unnerving gaze slowly drifts down my body. It’s not lecherous but studious.
Instantly, I don't like his brand of attention. Not sure why. Just a feeling. I trust my instincts. Lots of women don't. Trusting mine has kept me alive.
Deep down in my brain, my mind is already solving this problem with the handoff.
That's when I notice his patch.
Road Kill MC.
Not Chaos.
I have time to think, Why would I have a rival club doing the handoff? Then something is flying toward my face.
I sink to nearly my heels. Habit. Instinct.
Thank God my skirt's not so tight that the clothing constrains my movement.
Calem squeals in fright, and I jerk him around, flat-palming him onto the lawn and out of my reach—and the biker’s.
I barely note he's tumbled on his rear before the man rises from his seemingly casual perch on the bench. He feints a punch, and I see his hand isn’t in a fist. He’s gripping a knotted rope in a confident grasp. The rope’s stout and short.
Deadly.
Thrusting my palms behind me, I plant them on the asphalt path, bringing my foot forward.
No time to tap a heel and sprout a blade. I do an old-fashioned knee strike instead.
He goes down as anticipated.
Calem is screaming at my right.
Abort, I think when someone locks on to my long hair.
I clamp down on the pain as he drags me toward him.
Flipping me over on top of him, he thinks to subdue me. The fat abrasive rope length stands between us—promising unrequited violence .
A hard headbutt later, I'm smoothly rolling off him and landing ungracefully on my ass, flashing my panties to the world.